Are Ghosts Real? (a poll)

[Umbran]

(As proof, we are dumber than our ancestors from before agriculture

Woohoo! Is that assertion going to need a boatload of support!
Really, "As proof, here's a thing which is not proven!" That's your argument?

... The moment we can afford to be less smart, the moment we lose mental ability. Intelligence is costly, even now).

Now, we get to how this does not properly consider how our brains, or evolution, operates.

Yes, our brains use a whole lot of our biological energy budget. But, unless you are literally starving or freezing to death before you have kids - and the brain is thus using calories that could otherwise keep you alive - that expense is not providing a selective pressure against intelligence.

And, remember, AI isn't (yet) making our species dumber - AI has not been around long enough to impact the gene pool and select against genes for brains that work well.

If there is complex life out there, it is very unlikely to have developed into intelligent life. If intelligent life exists, why would it be necessarily as advanced as us? (Why would it necessarily be more advanced than us? Why would they wield essentially magic?).

Broadly speaking, the answer is: time.

The universe is something like 13-14 billion years old. We, as intelligent creatures, are between 3 million (Homo habillis) and 300,000 years old (early modern humans), depending how you want to count.

Simple statistics gives us that any other intelligent species out there is older than we are, because we are so new, on geologic and cosmic timescales. So, they've got the magic technology, because they've been around longer to develop technology.

And no, in this regard I get lots of appeals to the unknown (but you can't know how life could be in other planets, it doesn't need to be based on carbon and water which are among most abundant and reactive elements in the cosmos, it can be based on other elements that are less common and less reactive!

Water isn't an element. And, instead of being "most reactive", its benefit to us is that it is pretty stable - it provides an environment in which our chemical processes can take place without itself being altered

If the chemical basis for your life is too reactive, your required molecules keep falling apart in reactions. If the chemical basis for your life is too stable, the chemical processes of that life require significantly more energy. Carbon seems to be in a bit of a sweet spot - lots of covalent bonds, so it supports complex structures, and chemical activation energies that aren't too high or two low.

Oh no, but they can have other laws of physics).

No - they can know other laws of physics, for reasons of time mentioned above. But so far, but electrons and protons and neutrons are the same everywhere, so chemistry is the same everywhere.

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to have to defer to an actual physicist (or at least a physics major) on this one. I studied engineering, which doesn't dabble in stuff outside the Laws of Thermodynamics.

This is one of those "technically correct" statements that sounds more important than it is. It is nigh onto saying, "it is just a theory".

Yes, sure, the laws of thermodynamics are falsifiable. But, are you going to find a flaw with them? Probably not. They are probably the most tested laws in all of our scientific understanding: every single commercial chemical process, for example, tests the laws of thermodynamics. And we crunch a lot of chemicals.

 

[The Firebird]

Yes, our brains use a whole lot of our biological energy budget. But, unless you are literally starving or freezing to death before you have kids - and the brain is thus using calories that could otherwise keep you alive - that expense is not providing a selective pressure against intelligence.

There is a lot that is unknown here. In addition to the substantial energy costs, there are thoughts that the longer childhood, especially infancy, and difficult childbirth are all byproducts of intelligence. Then, very few species have progressed that far up the intelligence ladder, and humans have come very close to extinction before. That could be because intelligence is not typically a winner.

A bit different but on the same theme, there is also the idea that humans have the capability to wipe themselves out. If the more apocalyptic scenarios have some chance of being true, then too much intelligence is actually a negative in the long run.

Simple statistics gives us that any other intelligent species out there is older than we are, because we are so new, on geologic and cosmic timescales. So, they've got the magic technology, because they've been around longer to develop technology.

And, that is assuming the technological growth rate is in any way predictable. That depends a lot on the specifics of the environment. Humans, for example, have benefited from the widespread abundance of fossil fuels, which may not occur on a planet with a shorter history or different conditions.

---

The "intelligent life" part of the Drake equation is probably the least constrained. The origin of life is also unknown, but there has at least been some progress in the past 75 years.

 

[Umbran]

There is a lot that is unknown here. In addition to the substantial energy costs, there are thoughts that the longer childhood, especially infancy, and difficult childbirth are all byproducts of intelligence.

So, yes, extended infancy and childhood is a result of that big brain.

But, again, there's no selection pressure against it unless it causes death before successful reproduction. Meanwhile, the human population of the planet has tripled in the last 75 years - our big brains mean too many kids are being born and growing to adulthood, not to few.

Also, this just shows that Thanos was an idiot. Cut the population in half? We'll regrow it in under a century!

Then, very few species have progressed that far up the intelligence ladder, and humans have come very close to extinction before. That could be because intelligence is not typically a winner.

Yes, humans have come close to extinction before. You suggest this "may have been" due to intelligence. But, barring some specific evidence, it "may have been" that we'd have gone extinct if we didn't have the intelligence. There's no real telling.

"May have been" is not a supported argument - it is an appeal to emotion.

A bit different but on the same theme, there is also the idea that humans have the capability to wipe themselves out. If the more apocalyptic scenarios have some chance of being true, then too much intelligence is actually a negative in the long run.

So, interestingly, do you realize that it is our insufficient intelligence that is driving us into dangerous scenarios? The apocalyptic ends become more likely because we still rely on emotion-based risk assessment that is very bad at understanding long-term impacts.

And, that is assuming the technological growth rate is in any way predictable. That depends a lot on the specifics of the environment. Humans, for example, have benefited from the widespread abundance of fossil fuels, which may not occur on a planet with a shorter history or different conditions.

Fossil fuels exist due to entirely natural processes where life buts up against geology. Living things die, get buried, and in the long run the fossilization process produces coal (from trees) and oil and natural gas (from plankton). If you have enough sea life, oil and natural gas deposits are pretty much inevitable, as far as we understand the process. Coal is a little more complicated, and less inevitable.

But even then, you can go a long way on charcoal. It just takes longer. But longer on human timescales, not geological ones.